


Found at the Foot of Fallen Bluff

by Deannie



Series: Crossover Cross [2]
Category: Alias Smith and Jones, The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-18
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-15 14:54:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8060812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: A man can get in a heck of a fix trying to help a friend. Luckily, there are people sometimes to take care of you.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For the hc_bingo prompt: taking care of someone. Part of my Crossover Cross series.

Jedidiah Curry would have done well to remember one simple rule. Not having Hannibal Heyes around just seemed to spell trouble.

“Come on out, Curry!” Farragut shouted. Jed just grumbled and reloaded his gun in the dark. The moon was shining full outside, but it was freezing both here and there, and his hands were shaking with cold. He hadn’t hit anything with that last set of shots—hadn’t aimed to, in point of fact. He wasn’t one to go shooting men indiscriminately.

 _Unlike Farragut,_ he thought, trying to ignore the way the bullet in his leg burned. The old man was crazy _and_ determined. He hated that combination.

“Probably wouldn’t help to tell you, _again,_ that you got the wrong man!?” he yelled back.

“That's what all you criminals say!” the old man bellowed.

“Usually works, too,” Jed murmured. He had to get out of here or they were just going to wait until he passed out from blood loss.

Why the hell had he come down here in the first place? New Mexico territory didn’t have any more to recommend it than Wyoming did—and at least in Wyoming, he was home. Damn Heyes, anyway.

Heyes _had_ to go down to the border—to Santa Marta—doing a favor for Tucker, forgetting every single time they'd ever gotten wrapped up in one of that man's schemes. Jed, in a fit of pique, had refused to go, but when three weeks went by without word from his partner, he’d gotten worried and headed south to drag him out of whatever trouble he’d landed in. And now where was he? Ambushed and trapped in a cave and probably going to bleed to death if he didn’t get moving.

He shuffled to the side of the cave mouth and chanced a look out, though the moon cast shadows everywhere. False dawn was just confusing the issue, but he knew he couldn’t wait any longer. Farragut had four men with him and all of them were probably as tired as he was. They’d been riding after him for nearly a full day now, since he’d walked into that saloon in Bakerton and Farragut had recognized him somehow. He wasn’t even wanted in New Mexico, but a bounty as big as his didn’t care about state lines.

He didn’t have Heyes’s silver tongue to talk his way out and he had no reason at all to use his own God given talent and shoot his way out, so he took a page from the book of every con artist he’d ever met, and _snuck_ his way out. He’d left Bakerton under the veil of night and headed south and they’d been on his tail, far too close, since before dawn.

After a night of following the moon, Jed wasn’t exactly sure where he was, but he did know that he’d eventually hit Santa Marta if he kept going south. God willing, Heyes was still there and not in too much of his own trouble. And if he wasn’t, well…

“Nah,” he whispered to himself. “Heyes’ll be there. He’s just busy.” He grimaced as a pain raced through the bullet hole and up to his hip. “If he's sitting in jail because of that bastard Tucker, I’m gonna kill both of them.”

If he didn’t get killed himself right here and now.

His horse was in the bushes about fifteen yards away, across open, moonlit space. Bad odds. But if he could get to her, he could go along the cliff and get out. When he’d been barreling toward the bluff they were now on top of, he'd seen that there was a ridge of rock right along the edge, below the surface of the cliff, wide enough for a horse, he hoped. If he was fast, they might not even figure out where he’d gone to.

“All right, Heyes,” he whispered to his absent partner. “I could use some of your luck right about now.”

He took two deep breaths, banished to the back of his mind the knowledge of the pain he was in for, running on that leg, and sprinted for those damn bushes.

The sprint was more like a stumble, and he was surprised when he made it, though they predictably starting shooting through the branches at him, the dim light working in his favor for once, as he and his horse managed not to get hit. Wanted dead or alive meant exactly that, and a lot of men couldn’t care less which one you were, as long as they got their bounty. He hopped up on his horse and stayed low and managed to get to that ridge and then, he ran like hell.

And it worked.

He raced along the track as fast as was safe—maybe faster—and was about halfway down the cliff before he realized that they’d run right over him and past the dangerous trail, figuring he’d headed around them to try to make for the open mesa above.

“Ha ha!” he crowed quietly, a broad smile on his sunburned cheeks. “Heyes, I’ll never doubt that luck of yours again!”

Which was exactly the moment when his horse jolted to a stop, spooked by a crack in the trail, and pitched him straight off the cliff face, leaving her shaken and laden with his supplies while he rolled ass over head down the mercifully shallow grade.

His last conscious thought before he hit the trees at the bottom was that Heyes was going to pay for this. One way or another.

********

“I just don’t understand how he does it,” Nathan Jackson said again. They were heading past Fallen Bluff, still a day and a half from home.

Josiah Sanchez grinned. “Ezra’s ability to piss Chris off seems to know no bounds, I’ll grant you that,” he said as they meandered along. Nathan had ridden with him to meet up with an old friend in Ridge City, and while it had been a nice week, both men were ready to get back to Four Corners. Especially after receiving a telegram from JD about how Chris and Ezra had nearly come to blows. Again.

“Damn fool is going to get himself shot one of these..." Nathan trailed off and pulled his horse to a halt. Josiah did the same, looking around to see what Nathan saw that he'd missed. The sight of a booted foot sticking out of a stand of scrub oak at the base of the bluff had both men dismounting.

Josiah looked up toward the mesa that topped the rock edifice, tracking a furrow in the dirt and brush clinging to the side of it. “Must have rolled down from that trail there,” he observed, pointing to the awkward looking track that cut into the wall of the bluff. Dangerous way to get down the thing. He looked over to see Nathan crouching by the man half stuck in the stunted trees. It was sheer luck Nathan had seen him.

“Looks like it,” Nathan agreed. “He’s still breathing. Help me pull him out of here.”

Between them they lifted him out and laid him flat on the ground. He was a handsome man, rangy with dark blond hair that was too long, and curled as a result. His clothes were torn and bloodied and Nathan hissed in sympathy at the bruising that was spreading out from a gash at his temple.

“He took a bad knock to the head…. Left arm’s broke,” he cataloged. “Looks like maybe some ribs.” He bent down for a closer look at the man’s leg, where the blood stains were more serious. “Been shot, too. Bullet’s still in him.”

Josiah looked back up to the trail on the bluff, nearly thirty feet above them. “Wonder how long ago this happened.”

Nathan stood, looking up at the path of destruction the man had left, then over at his own horse. “Couldn’t have been long,” he said. “He’s bad off, but not like he would be if it’d been days—probably some time last night or this morning.”

The man didn’t respond to the movement or their voices or anything, and Josiah came to a quick decision. “Whoever led him to this’ll be back for him at some point. Think one of our horses can carry two as far as home?”

“We don’t even know who he is, Josiah,” Nathan argued. “Hell, he might’ve been running from a posse, accused of murder, for all we know.”

“Or he could just be in trouble,” Josiah replied. He looked down at the man again and smiled. “I like the look of him,” he said simply, not able to explain. The man just didn’t look like he was a bad guy. “You can always treat him in a jail cell until we find out who he is.” He knew Nathan wasn’t going to leave the poor soul to die out here, he just needed a push.

Nathan stared at the man for a long moment before he snorted. “You and your damn strays,” he grumbled, bending down to the man and grabbing his sound arm. “Well come on, then,” he said, waiting for Josiah to grab hold. “We got another day’s ride at least to home.”

Josiah slapped him lightly on the back and bent to help lift the man. “You’re a good man, Nathan Jackson,” he said as they all but dragged him toward the horses. “I’ll take him on Prophet for the first leg.”

“Yeah, you will,” Nathan agreed. “Just as soon as I get him patched up.”

**********

It was dark.

It was dark, and he hurt, but he had a feeling he’d been hurting a lot more than this, just in the recent past.

“We’ll be home by mid afternoon,” a deep voice said. It sounded soothing, and he just let it push at his awareness.

“I was hoping he’d wake up soon,” another voice said. “I’m worried maybe his head was hit worse than I thought.”

“If you’re talking about me, you’re probably right,” he said quietly. Still sounded like rocks falling on his skull. He tried to put a hand to his forehead, but gasped at the pain in his arm and chest.

“Easy now,” the second voice said. Gentle hands held him down and, instinctively, he fought against them. “Easy,” the voice repeated. “Now, you’re going to hurt yourself worse if you ain’t careful.” The voice had that sort of shrill worry that… someone… The thought escaped him, but he calmed at the idea that someone had worried about him at some point.

He blinked his eyes open, looking up at a dark face in a dark world. “Where am I?” he asked, his mouth dry enough to set him coughing. Another man, this one a white man, appeared, holding a tin cup that held water enough to stop the hacking, but not enough to slake his thirst.

The pain from his fit had him shaking for a long minute before he gasped out, "What happened?"

“We’re headed toward Four Corners,” the black man said. “Found you at the foot of Fallen Bluff,” he explained, like it should make some sense to him. “Reckon you must’ve fallen yourself.” The man started looking suspicious, and that set off warning bells he didn’t understand. “Figured maybe you could tell us what happened.”

He couldn’t. He couldn’t tell anything right at the moment, which he supposed should have worried him, but it didn’t. Maybe he’d hit his head. “I hit my head?” he asked.

The white man nodded. “Hard enough, apparently,” he said. He had caring eyes. Like that preacher did when they were growing up. “My name’s Josiah,” he offered. “This is Nathan. He’s a healer—he’ll take care of you.” There was a long moment of silence, and he started to wonder if he was supposed to say something now. The man named Josiah sighed. “What’s your name, son?”

“I have no idea,” he answered truthfully. Again, it should have worried him, but it didn’t.

The two men exchanged a look in the firelight, and the black man ghosted a hand over his head, checking him out. It hurt a lot, even cushioned by what he figured was a bandage over his temple.

“Could be you just need to wake up some,” the black man offered.

He closed his eyes, starting to drift off again. Someone chuckled and he put his money on the white man.

“Or get some more sleep.”

That second one sounded better.

******

He was never going anywhere again without the Kid to back him up.

Hannibal Heyes stumbled his way into the saloon in Eagle Bend just past dark, wishing he’d gotten into town early enough to take advantage of the bath house. Better yet, wishing he’d never set foot in New Mexico territory in the first place. The Kid had warned him about trusting Gus Tucker, and he should’ve listened.

They’d met up with Gus in a saloon like this one in Mutton, just north of the Colorado-Wyoming border, and he’d told them a sob story about a woman he’d fallen in love with and the man who was threatening to steal her land from her. The Kid had pointed out that Gus had _never_ told them a straight story. The Kid had pointed out that Gus could _never_ be trusted. The Kid had been one hundred percent right, and Hannibal was going to tell him that just as soon as he got together enough money to get back home.

Because, of course, Gus’s woman had been a cheat like him and they’d fleeced a very rich and powerful man out of his money, leaving him angry and vengeful—and with his sights set on Hannibal himself, since they’d done such a great job of setting him up to take the fall for them.

He’d been lucky to escape with his skin intact. Unfortunately, it was pretty much all he _had_ escaped with. He’d taken the twenty dollars he had in his boot at the time and turned it into a hundred in a good night of poker in Youngstown, and he'd spent too much of that to buy a nag of a horse who’d thrown a shoe a day’s ride north of there. He’d been walking the damn thing for three days now and he was hot, sweaty, and in desperate need of a drink.

“You look rough, pal,” the bartender said, as Hannibal dropped his tired butt onto a stool at the bar.

“Whiskey,” he ordered, dropping two bits on the pitted wooden surface before him. “And I am. Hoping to find a bed, a bath, and a shave. Unfortunately, it looks like it’ll have to be in the that order.”

“Bath house closes early, all right,” the bartender agreed, pouring an extra long glass of whiskey with an indulgent wink for Hannibal’s obvious trouble. “But if you get a room at Maddie’s, she’ll set you up with one, any time of day.”

Hannibal snorted at that. “For how much?”

The bartender brandished the two bits he’d just picked up. “A hell of a lot more than this,” he said with a smile.

Hannibal drank his whiskey. “I think I’ll just sleep dirty.”

“I can’t believe we had him in our hands and let him get away!” someone was lamenting at a table not too far away. “$10,000 bounty and he’s gone.”

$10,000 bounty. Definitely got Hannibal’s attention. He focused on the table, where a quartet of ranch hands were drinking and playing poker.

“I’m betting he’s long gone,” another of the ranch hands said. “Probably hightailed it back to Wyoming as fast as he could.”

Hannibal’s gut clenched. How many people in Wyoming had that kind of bounty on them?

“I ain’t even sure Farragut was right,” the third of four put in. “I mean, the guy said he wasn’t him. Didn’t even use the same name.” He drank his whiskey. “He’s been wrong before. Remember that guy last year?”

Their fourth snorted, looking to be the soberest of them. “The guy last year was a fluke. And anyway, what was this guy going to do, Smitty? Walk on up and say ‘Hey, how are you? I’m Kid Curry, what can I do for you?’ Use sense.”

Damn. What the hell was the Kid doing down here?

 _Coming after you,_ he replied to himself angrily. He probably got worried when Hannibal hadn’t been able to contact him. In his own defense, he’d been a little busy!

“Well, old man Farragut plugged him good in the leg,” number one said, draining the last of his whiskey. “Did you see how he was limping so bad when he run for his horse? I reckon he just fell off somewheres and bled to death.”

“Reckon Farragut won’t stop looking ‘til he finds the body,” the fourth said. “‘Wanted Dead or Alive,’ the poster says.”

Hannibal turned away from the table quickly, though he stared at the reflection of the four men in the pitted mirror above the bar. _Damn it, Kid_ , he thought angrily. _See what kind of trouble you get yourself into?_

That he was the one who got him into it was a fact he forcibly overlooked. A tall, angry-looking man stomped in and approached the men. He was in his mid-seventies and he didn’t look quite sane. _Just the kind of man you want running a posse,_ Hannibal thought, his heart dropping.

“You boys get too drunk to pull out at dawn, and I’ll leave you here,” he growled. Hannibal figured he must be Old Man Farragut. “Teddy found his horse, wandering in the desert. Figure he dropped off somewhere between Fallen Bluff and here.”

“Maybe we should send a telegram to the towns around,” the one called Smitty suggested. “Reckon those regulators in Four Corners could keep an eye out for him.”

“And take my damn bounty,” Farragut growled. “If they’d got him, we’d’ve heard about it.” He looked north, through the wall and into the desert. “No, he’s holed up somewhere or he’s dead. Either way, he’s mine.”

Farragut stomped off and the quartet moved out shortly thereafter. Hannibal rubbed a sweaty palm on his pants and used the other hand to tap his glass on the bar. The bartender approached, ready to help.

“Hey, have you heard of a place called Fallen Bluff?” he asked innocently.

The bartender nodded. “It’s about two days north and east of here,” he said. “Why, you looking for that famous bank robber, too?”

Hannibal forced a smile. “Well,” he joked. “I could do a lot with $10,000.”

Though right now, he’d take the man worth it, instead.

*********

JD Dunne was driving himself crazy. And in doing so, he was driving the rest of them crazy as well.

“He just looks familiar, is all,” he said for the hundredth time.

Ezra Standish sighed and watched Chris Larabee grimace in annoyance from the next table over. The gambler shuffled his cards and dealt another hand to the trio of men who had stepped off the stage this morning with far too much money in their pockets, as far as he was concerned.

It was noon time, and nothing had been happening in Four Corners lately, so the group of seven men who looked after the town had been relaxing. Until the next great crisis.

“He don’t even look familiar to himself right now, Kid,” Buck Wilmington said with a smile, his mustache tipped with froth from his beer. “So I reckon any help you can give him in that department would be much obliged.”

Yesterday afternoon, Nathan and Josiah had ridden into town with an unconscious man who was still something of a mystery. He’d woken up a couple of times, but he never seemed to know where he was or who he was, and as he’d had a bullet in his leg when they found him, the seven of them had been keeping an eye on him and keeping their mouths shut.

“I don’t see how a man can just forget who he is,” JD mused.

“Seen it in the war once,” Chris said quietly. His eyes grew hard. “Soldier took a round in the head. He could read and write and talk and shoot, but he never did remember who he was.”

“So what did he do?” JD asked, all bright-eyed wonder.

“What else could he do?” Chris replied. “He started calling himself the name the people around him gave him. Made a new life.”

Ezra’s opponents looked at each other despondently as he placed his straight flush on the table. He supposed he’d lightened their purses enough for one day. “Gentlemen,” he told them with a quiet smile that could have been seen as apologetic but wasn’t, really. “I’m afraid I must retire from the game for the moment.”

He was unsurprised when the trio quickly moved off, and he tucked the tidy sum into his wallet, collected his glass, and headed to the bar for a refill, smiling sweetly at Inez as he did so but still listening to the conversation behind him.

“But this guy don’t even _have_ a name,” JD lamented. Ezra shook his head. Since when did a name mean anything at all? He’d had a hundred of them.

Though he _was_ partial to his real one, so there might be something to what the boy was saying.

“Josiah’s calling him Anthony,” Buck said.

“Anthony?” JD asked. “Why?”

“Patron saint of lost causes,” Ezra explained as he walked over and took a seat. “Which I fear is what we’re looking at here.”

“I still don’t see why we don’t let Mrs. Travis put something in the Clarion about him,” JD said. “Maybe someone knows him and will come forward and take him home.”

“And maybe the person who shot him will come forward to finish the job,” Buck replied. “He don’t seem hardened and desperate—”

“Not that he’d remember if he was,” Ezra interrupted wryly.

Buck shook his head and opened his mouth to argue, but Chris stopped him.

“We’ll wait to see if he remembers anything before we go doing anything stupid,” Chris said quietly. “I ain’t gonna risk putting a man in danger if we can help it.” He drank the last of his coffee. “Vin’s out trying to track where he came from. Figure that’ll give us a clue.”

JD stood up and put on his hat. “I told Nathan I’d take over guard duty for the afternoon,” he announced. “Not much to guard, though.”

“Nathan says he should be waking up proper any time now,” Buck told him. “Maybe he’ll even remember who he is this time.”

Ezra wasn’t putting bets on it.

******

God, his head hurt. And his leg. And his arm.

Jed tried to figure out a bit of him that didn’t hurt, but it took too much brain power. And that had always been Heyes’s strong suit.

Where _was_ Heyes? He had the idea his partner wasn’t with him, but everything was pretty fuzzy. He blinked a couple of times, trying to clear his eyes of crusts, and set about figuring out where he was.

“I think he’s waking up,” an unfamiliar voice said. Jed looked up at a whitewashed ceiling, then around at a... doctor’s clinic? He had no idea how he’d gotten here, and that was a problem.

“Hey. You awake?” The young man sitting beside the bed had been the one talking when he woke up. He was wearing a suit and a sheriff’s star and he had a belt around his hips with two holstered pistols.

Hell.

“Yeah,” Jed answered, trying to figure out what was going on. He’d been running right? From a posse? “Sort of.”

“Give him a minute, JD,” a deep, caring voice said. A very tall black man was standing beside him suddenly, like magic. He had a cup in his hand. “Why don’t you drink that water for me and we’ll see what you remember.”

What he remembered? He looked back over at the sheriff, who’d leaned forward and hadn’t touched his guns. Both men looked curious. What the hell…?

Farragut. Farragut was chasing him and… “I fell,” he said suddenly, the feeling of pitching forward and into the dirt coming to him clearly. He held on to the cup with his right hand, noticing finally that his left arm was strapped up in a splint. “My horse threw me.”

“Good,” the black man said, taking the now empty mug. Jed figured he must be the doctor. “You gonna know your name if I ask you that?”

Yeah, now _that_ was a question. There was a sheriff in the room, but Jed didn’t have any cuffs on. They were curious, not wary. Was he under arrest or under protection? Curry or Jones?

“I’m… not sure,” he hedged.

The sheriff frowned in disappointment. “We were really hoping you could remember,” he said. He was too young to be a sheriff, Jed thought. “Nathan thought maybe, once you’d healed up a little, we could figure out what was going on?”

Jed played stupid. It was at least something he was good at. The doctor—Nathan (and he remembered that dimly, like he’d known it before the sheriff said it)—answered his questioning frown.

“You didn’t just take a fall,” he said, talking on as Jed’s memory filled in the blanks of his run-in with Farragut and his ranch hands. “You went off a cliff called Fallen Bluff, couple of days east of here. You been shot in the leg, too, but I ain’t sure that’s what caused you to fall.” He sighed, turning to ladle something dark into the cup he still had in his hand. “Truth is we don’t know what your story is.”

Jed nodded, taking the cup and grimacing at the smell of the stuff.

“I know,” the sheriff said. “It smells bad. Tastes worse,” he confirmed with an apologetic look at the doctor. “But Nathan’s good at helping you heal. It’ll make you feel better.”

After a couple of tentative sips, Jed shook his head. “I think I’d rather hurt.”

“You wouldn’t,” Nathan confirmed. “You’ve got an infection in that leg.” Jed tensed, feeling the pain intensify as his leg muscles contracted. “It’s got to be cleaned, and I guarantee you don’t want me to do that without help.”

Jed smiled wryly, raised his mug in a toast, and drank the disgusting stuff.

“I’m JD Dunne,” the young man introduced himself. The door opened as he spoke and a another tall man came in. White with black hair and a mustache, he had an amiable face. He kept silent as the boy continued. “I’m the sheriff of Four Corners—well, there’s seven of us take care of the town, but…”

“But he was the only one stupid enough to put on the badge,” the new man said, teasing. “He’s looking pretty alert to me, Nathan,” he said, scolding the doctor. He smiled at Jed, and Jed just naturally felt himself smile back. Guy reminded him of Heyes a little bit. One of those guys everybody liked. “Name’s Buck Wilmington,” he said.

“Thaddeus Jones,” Jed said, stopping himself immediately as the three men looked at him in surprise. Damn. He shook his head and pretended stupid again. “I don’t know,” he told them nervously. “Just... came to me.”

Nathan smiled. “That’s good, Thaddeus,” he told him. “Means maybe you’ll get the rest of it back, too.”

Oh Jed had the rest of it back, all right.

“You don’t remember who shot you by any chance?” Wilmington asked.

Jed took a quick measure of these men. He didn’t have Hannibal’s way of reading a person on first sight, but it was clear to him that these men wanted to help him. The problem was, of course, was that he actually _was_ exactly what Farragut thought he was, an outlaw running from the law.

But hell, they didn’t need to know that.

“I was… somewhere,” he hedged, laying out his story carefully. “And there was a guy there. Name might've been Farragut? Something like that. Old, and I don’t think he was quite sane, if you catch me.” Buck grinned and JD nodded seriously, like they'd heard of him and agreed with the assessment. “He called me a name…. Curry?”

JD’s eyes got huge all of a sudden, and Jed’s mouth ran dry. Damn it, he knew better than to try to run a scam without Heyes to smooth it over.

“Kid Curry!” JD crowed, looking him over carefully. Jed tried to look pitiful and confused. “ _That’s_ who you look like!”

“Who’s Kid Curry?” Nathan asked, bringing over a tray with sharp things on it. Jed tried not to look at it.

“He’s a bank robber,” JD replied, like the healer should have known. “Only worked in Wyoming, though.” He looked worried now. “He’s got a $10,000 bounty on him.”

“Ten thousand dollars?” Nathan asked. He started unwrapping the bandage around Jed’s leg, so Jed hoped no one saw the shudder he gave. What had seemed like such a good idea in their youth just seemed to be coming back to haunt them every single day, didn’t it? “Lord, how many people did he kill?”

Jed forced himself to stay silent. Buck was quiet, too, just looking at him, and Jed couldn’t shake a chill in his bones. He looked up in shock as JD answered the question. “Nobody,” he said.

Nathan looked up at him, clearly doubting.

“No, really. He didn’t kill anyone. Didn’t even shoot anyone, so they say.”

“‘They’ being Jock Steel?” Buck asked, his whole demeanor seeming to change as he looked away from Jed like he’d gotten some kind of answer to a question he didn’t ask. “Come on, kid, you know better than to believe those damn books. Hell, think about the one he wrote about us!”

“Someone wrote a book about you, too?” Jed had to ask. Nobody seemed interested in arresting him right at the moment. They all seemed to be taking him at face value, which was strange, but maybe he was better at bluffing than he thought.

“It’s all crap,” Buck told him confidently.

“Actually,” Nathan refuted, watching Jed carefully as he finished unwrapped the bandage and lifting off the poultice. “Most of it was true. Sort of.”

“Yeah,” JD said, his voice sounding kind of fuzzy. “He just used some of those ‘literary embellishments’ Ezra was talking about…”

The men kept talking, but they moved away. Or Jed did. He yawned huge, feeling exhaustion pull at him. He had to stay awake, though. They were on his side for the moment, and that gave him some breathing room. But he had to figure out what to do now… How to…

There’d been something in that horrible tea…

He was out before he could figure out how to let Heyes know where he was without letting Farragut know, too.

*******

Hannibal pulled his nag to a stop in front of the livery in Four Corners just after the sun set. He’d woken early this morning, taken time to bathe finally and shave, and used a little of his remaining money to buy a better change of clothes.

He’d headed toward Fallen Bluff, following the bartender’s directions and, from the wide trail of hoofprints ahead of him, Farragut himself, but realized quickly that, if the Kid was up and moving (and he _had_ to be up and moving, right?), the last thing he’d do was stay around there. Farragut and his men had mentioned a town named Four Corners, and Hannibal had taken the time to figure out where it was before he left Eagle Bend. He’d start here—hell, for all he knew, the Kid was having a drink at the local saloon, losing at poker.

_“Old Man Farragut plugged him good in the leg…”_

Hannibal sighed and headed for the saloon anyway.

Of course the Kid wasn’t there. The place was surprisingly quiet, in fact, with only about three-quarters of the tables filled. There was a raised platform off to one side of the floor and a poker game was going on, watched by a motley crew.

A professional gambler was running it, Hannibal noticed as he headed for the bar, where a beautiful Mexican girl was pouring drinks. A fancy red jacket and a ruffled silk shirt hid any skills the man up at the poker table might have. He smiled and grinned and was probably taking those people for everything they had. Hannibal had played against that type before.

His opponents were mostly passers-through from the looks of them. The kind of people that were probably headed for the train to San Francisco to make their fortune. Nothing remarkable. The men ranged around the outside of the game, though? They were interesting.

There was a broad, powerful looking man, a bit older than the rest, who was watching with intelligent eyes and a combination of amusement and fondness. Beside him sat a black man, tall maybe, though it was hard to really tell with him sitting down. He was colder when he looked at the gambler, but not like he actually disliked him. More exasperated. Though there was a shine of pride too, as the gambler won the current hand tidily, sending one of the players away in shame.

On the other side of the raised area was a rangy man with a big black mustache, who seemed to be watching everything at once while entertaining a pretty woman at his side.

Hannibal would swear the three men were looking out for the gambler to make sure he didn’t get into trouble.

“Can I help you, senor?”

Hannibal turned back to the bar and smiled at the pretty barmaid. “Whiskey,” he said. “Please.”

She poured him a glass, and Hannibal turned back to watch the room. He didn’t know what he was looking for until a buffalo hunter walked in and headed straight into the shadows in the back. He was dirty and dusty, and a little bit dangerous looking and… Hannibal just had a hunch.

The hunter nodded pleasantly at the barmaid and kept going, and Hannibal followed his trajectory, surprised to see a table there in the shadows that he hadn’t noticed before. There was a man sitting there, and Hannibal got a chill from him. Dangerous for sure, that one.

He moved slowly down the bar, closer to the table, without drawing attention to himself. Once he was within listening distance, he turned back to watch the game, the way nearly everyone in the room was.

“He took the lower track,” the hunter was saying. “Probably hoping to slip the posse that was after him.”

“Well he did that. Did they pick up his trail?” The dangerous man’s voice wasn’t actually all that dangerous sounding. Low and intense, sure, but there was something about it that said he was interested for the right reasons.

“Not yet,” the hunter said, a smile in his voice. “Looks like the horse stopped short at…  and circled back.” Hannibal cursed at the noise in the room as he lost half the sentence. “They’re still looking.”

“Farragut, huh?” the dangerous man asked, confirming Hannibal’s hunch. “Idiot. Heard he nearly killed that man he thought was Marcus Bilkin last year. Getting senile in his old age.”

“And dreaming of that one big bounty,” the hunter said. “Why the hell you think I don’t get up to Bakerton?” His voice went very serious. “I figure he thinks he’s got one now.”

“Would you like another, senor?” the barmaid asked, masking whatever else the dangerous man had to say. _Damn it, Kid…_

They had to know something, right? Why would they be out looking, otherwise?

Hannibal nodded and smiled. “Thanks, I would,” he said, as he contemplated approaching the two men. But the hunter breezed past him—and headed up to the raised table to sit next to the black man. The two talked for a moment, then he settled in to watch the show.

 _Because that’s where the action is_ , Hannibal decided. He took his now filled glass and headed up to the game, standing off to the side and just looking for a moment. He could feel four sets of eyes sizing him up. Whoever these men were, they knew something about the Kid’s whereabouts, and he was going to find out what it was.

“How much does it cost to get in?” he asked as the current hand concluded. The gambler hadn’t won it, but Hannibal himself had lost a hand or two to keep an opponent flush enough to oppose.

The gambler looked up at him, assessing him in a totally different way than the others had—and probably far more completely. Made Hannibal nervous, but if he was going to figure out what was happening and where the Kid was, he’d better get into this game.

Not the poker one.

“Five dollar antes at the moment,” the gambler said. He looked at one of the men at the table, a young rich fool who had the look of a empty purse about him. “I believe it won’t be long, however, before we can raise the stakes considerably.”

Hannibal had exactly fifteen dollars left of the money he’d won in Youngstown. He dropped a third of it on the table and sat across from the gambler. The man with the mustache—and unfortunately the door—were at his back.

The gambler grinned at him, showing a gold tooth like a warning sign, and dealt him in.

*********

JD was staring. He knew he was, and he knew it was rude, but Thaddeus Jones really _did_ look just like the sketch of Kid Curry he’d seen in that novel about the Devil’s Hole Gang. He could see why Farragut thought it was him.

“Look, can I help you with something?” Thaddeus asked. There was an edge to his voice, but JD figured he was mostly just tired and hurting. He’d woken up from the sleep Nathan’s concoction had given him, and he had eaten, but mostly he just laid there and stared at the ceiling like he was thinking hard.

“Just wondering if you remembered anything more,” JD asked quietly. He just couldn’t believe the guy had forgotten _everything_.

Thaddeus sighed and relaxed a little. “My head hurts so bad, I think I’m lucky I remember my own name,” he said, sounding frustrated. “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, kid, but you staring at me isn’t helping.” He looked suddenly nervous. “This guy Farragut…? What’s his story? How likely is he to come looking for me?”

JD shook his head. “Lad Farragut is a rancher up near Bakerton, and… Well, people say he’s crazy. He’s got one of those heads that remembers everything, and the sheriff up there has had him in his office a dozen times in the last few years, looking at wanted posters and memorizing them. He has it in his head that he’ll catch some big bounty one day, retire in style.”

“Nice work if you can get it,” Thaddeus said darkly.

“Except you’re not the first innocent man he’s tried to turn in.” Thaddeus looked at him and JD was surprised to see the hope there, like he was afraid they wouldn’t believe him. “Heck, I figure if you were really Kid Curry, you wouldn’t’ve told us about Farragut at all. You’d just bide your time until you could escape.” He grinned. “And besides, everybody knows Kid Curry never leaves Wyoming.”

“Is that so?” Thaddeus asked idly. He got a weird look on his face for a second, but it was gone before JD could figure out what it meant. “So Farragut’s obsessed?” he said, defeated. “I’m not in much condition to take him on if he shows up here.”

“He’s afraid of Chris,” JD said with a smile. “He won’t come here. And if he does, we’ll take care of him.”

Thaddeus just nodded, but he was still worrying over something. Probably everything.

“I wish you could remember where you’re from. Or somebody you know. Anything.” JD wanted to help the guy. He seemed nice.

“Not sure I’d want anybody I know around, if Farragut comes after me,” Thaddeus said, again with that sad thoughtful look to him. His eyes closed a longer moment and he snapped them open and tried to hold them that way.

“Why don’t you get some more sleep,” JD told him, hoping the poor man would be able to. “I promise, we aren’t going to let anything happen to you.”

Thaddeus nodded, clearly already drifting. “Just wish I had my gun on me…” he muttered quietly, the sound petering out into nothing.

JD unconsciously gripped his belt, wondering what a guy like Thaddeus needed a gun for anyway.

*********

Ezra watched the man before him, looking for any tell on his broad, open face.

Joshua Smith was a very good poker player. He’d dipped into his wallet exactly once, yet he’d managed to amass a fair pile of bills and coins and helped Ezra force both of the other players out of the game. Ezra didn’t know if Smith knew that that was his intention all along, and honestly, now that the two of them had the table to themselves, it hardly mattered.

“Your action, Mr. Smith,” he said, as Smith took a moment to look around the room. Nathan had left about half an hour ago, replaced by JD, who had obviously given up his duty as guard over the newly-named Thaddeus Jones. The game had had a fair number of watchers there at the beginning, but as the table got quieter and more serious, most had drifted off. Now, late in the evening, Josiah, Vin, and JD were the only spectators, though Ezra knew Chris was likely watching from his place downstairs.

Smith shook himself and smiled. “Sorry,” he said, tossing in a twenty dollar bill. “Raise five.”

Ezra grinned and tossed in a five dollar coin. “I call,” he replied, ending this hand in hopes of a better one after. He was eighty dollars into the current pot, but he could tell Smith was getting restless, and a win right now might entice the man to keep playing. Ezra displayed his ace-high two pair, knowing that Smith likely had a straight. He’d played completely above board tonight, though he might be on the losing end of it. It had been a while since he’d had a chance to play against someone he _could_ lose to.

“Damn,” Smith whispered, surprising him. “Thought I had you bluffed.” He dropped a broken straight, a second eight where a seven should be, and tossed the cards into the pot. Looking at the pile of money before him, he seemed to come to a decision. “I think maybe I should call it a night.” He grinned. “Need enough money to get home.” And then he sighed, a little forlorn. “Course I got to find my friend to do that.”

Ezra didn’t react and neither did Vin, but he knew Josiah and JD had perked up behind him. There was no rhyme to it. They just all seemed to feel, right at the same moment, that Smith’s _friend_ and Thaddeus Jones were one and the same.

“Well perhaps your friend simply found an equally engaging game somewhere along the way,” Ezra replied blithely, sounding like he couldn’t really care less. He continued to order his winnings, casting the cards to the side as he came upon them, to be collected later. The trio of peacekeepers arrayed around them started shifting like they were off to look for new entertainment, though none of them actually moved to leave. Vin circled around casually to cut off Smith’s escape, should he try to make one.

Smith chuckled wryly as he rose. “Gosh, I hope not. Thaddeus isn’t much of a poker player.”

Ezra blessed Josiah, who was almost certainly restraining JD. They had no idea who this man was, and the fact remained that Thaddeus Jones had been targeted by Lad Farragut and his crew. For all they knew, this man could be a member of it.

“You haven’t seen him around, have you?” Smith asked, earnest and sincere. Ezra could do earnest and sincere, too. It didn’t really take much. “Taller than me, curly blond hair and blue eyes?”

Ezra looked over Smith’s head at Vin, but the tracker was looking over _his_ head at Josiah.

“No one came from the bluff in the last day,” Vin said quietly. Ezra held in a sigh. He did hope Smith wasn’t simply a conman of a caliber similar to his own.

Smith was looking at Josiah now, as well.

“Your friend Thaddeus ran into a bit of trouble,” the preacher said gently.

Smith’s look of naked concern could have been faked, but Ezra was less sure that it was. “He okay?” Smith asked, clearly afraid of the answer.

“He’ll heal,” Josiah replied, though the non-answer didn’t help the man in the least. “There’s a bit of a problem, though.”

“He doesn’t remember anything,” JD blurted.

Smith sank back down into his chair. “What now?”

********

Nathan Jackson was sleeping in his little room at the back of the clinic and Jed was sitting on the bed up front, thinking. He should leave. He should find out where Hannibal was and go there and get the two of them away from New Mexico as fast as he could. If Farragut had seen _his_ poster, he was sure to have seen Heyes's too.

Why did he ever stop in that saloon? Hell, why did Heyes ever leave Wyoming in the first place? Nothing good ever seemed to come of it.

"Find us a place to stay. I don't care if you have to roust the owner."

Jed closed his eyes in disbelief at the gruff voice heard just outside the livery downstairs. Farragut. He must have tracked Nathan and Josiah back here and figured Jed had come with them.

"I'll wake that healer of theirs," Farragut continued. "If he made it here, he'd probably be so far gone he'd've _had_ to let that darky doctor him."

Jed looked over to where Nathan’s gun belt sat on the table in the corner.

He really hated shooting people. He'd spent half his life making sure he was the fastest shot in town so that he didn't _have_ to shoot people.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs below.

"Last time I try to pull your fat out of the fire, Heyes," he grated. Might be the last time he did anything. He hobbled over to the table, cursing the pain in his left arm and hoping his legs would hold him up long enough to get there. They did, barely, and he grabbed the gun out of Nathan’s holster.

“Farragut,” a voice called from a little ways off, stopping the feet on the stairs. “Late to come calling, isn’t it?”

“Larabee,” Farragut replied, a little of that fear JD had talked about in his voice.

Jed moved silently to the window and peered out. The other men had spoken of Chris Larabee, but Jed hadn’t met him. In the light of the street fires, he looked dangerous. Josiah and JD stood behind him.

“Got some business here in town?” Larabee asked. “You’re a long way from Bakerton.”

“My men tracked a fugitive here,” Farragut said, clearly not wanting to name Jed and share the $10,000. “I winged him a few days ago. Reckoned he might have come here looking for your dar—” he stopped himself before he used the word again— “for your healer.”

“Thaddeus!”

Jed turned at the hissed call behind him to find Nathan fully dressed and nodding him toward the back room. When Jed got there, Nathan yanked the gun out of his hand like he was disarming an errant child. “Give me that and get back there and hide.”

Jed bristled at the command. “I’m not hiding from him—”

“Chris’ll take care of him,” Nathan promised. “Now go on—I ain’t fixing you up again if you do anything stupid.”

Jed shook his head and let Nathan go forward. The town was silent this late at night, and Jed could hear a fair amount of the discussion being had between Larabee and the crazy rancher.

“Ain’t had anyone new come into town at all, the last couple of days,” Larabee was saying. “You sure your man wasn’t just following my men coming back from Ridge City?”

“That fugitive came this way,” Farragut bit back, certainty in the words. “He had to.”

“Sure he’s actually who you think he is?” Buck Wilmington asked, appearing out of nowhere into the street, far enough to the side to cover Farragut easily if he made an issue of it. “Seems you’re known for accusing an awful lot of innocent people of some not so innocent things.”

Jed wondered where Larabee’s other men were. He wondered where Farragut’s were, too.

He really needed a gun.

“Now you wait just a minute—” Farragut began.

“We don’t need your kind of trouble in this town, Farragut.” Larabee told him, ordering him out in no uncertain terms. “Your bounty’s not here. Best you move on before you get into something you can’t handle.”

Jed couldn’t see what was going on, and he didn’t hear any kind of signal, but Nathan suddenly had the clinic door open and Jed heard the man’s rifle cock in the night. Silence reigned, and Jed limped forward slowly to look out the window, hanging onto the sill to keep himself upright. Farragut was standing in the street, Larabee’s gun trained on him, while a fancy-dressed gambler, JD, Buck, and Josiah all held guns on the men who’d been chasing him just days ago.

“If I find out he was here, Larabee, there’ll be hell to pay,” Farragut promised.

“Only unwanted stranger in town is you,” Larabee said. “Go on home. Catch a bounty somewhere else.”

Farragut growled, but, surprisingly enough, he moved to his horse and mounted. With some encouragement from Larabee’s men, his crew did the same, and they were riding out of town in moments. Larabee said something to Buck, then nodded up at one of the nearby rooftops. Jed wondered, his head starting to swim a little with all the excitement and the being upright, whether the seventh of the men that protected Four Corners was up there.

He should really sit down.

“Damn it, Thaddeus, what did I tell you?” Nathan was suddenly holding him up, though Jed didn’t remember starting to fall. “Let’s get you back in that bed.”

“Farragut—” Jed began, knowing the crazy old man wouldn’t give up that easy.

“Vin and Buck’ll follow them,” Nathan assured him. So the seventh man _had_ been on the roof. “We told you we’d take care of you, and we will.”

It was funny how nice that sounded. Jed had been taking care of himself most of his life. Well, with Hannibal’s help, obviously. But still. It felt good to have someone else do it for a while. He closed his eyes, exhausted all over again and shaking with the exertion. Sleep sounded good right about now.

“Drink this down,” Nathan told him, helping him hold another cup of that horrible tea. “You need to rest and recover. We’ll keep you under wraps ‘til you’re ready to travel.”

Jed heard two sets of light footsteps on the stairs outside, but Nathan didn’t seem alarmed, and honestly, the brew was making him float again. Or maybe that was just exhaustion.

“Is everything under control here, Mr. Jackson?” a Southern voice asked politely as the door opened and both sets of boots stepped inside.

“Yeah, he just wore himself out.” There was a pause. “Who’s this?”

“Possibly someone who can help us with our other current problem,” the Southerner said. “Since Mr. Tanner and Mr. Wilmington are seeing Farragut and his men home.”

“Joshua Smith,” Hannibal introduced himself. Jed very carefully didn’t open his eyes. But he did feel his irritation rising. This was all Heyes’s fault anyway, and now here he was, probably with his hat in his hand and that puppy dog look on his face. The one that had gotten him out of _everything_ , it seemed, since they were kids. “Hey, is he gonna be okay?” the slightly shrill concern was comforting, as it always was, but Jed was still mad at him.

“Mr. Smith claims to know Mr. Jones,” the Southerner said, something in his voice that wasn’t quite skepticism.

“Ezra explained your friend’s condition, right?” Nathan said carefully. “He’s remembering, bit by bit, but he might not remember _you_.”

“I… Yeah, I understand,” Heyes said. He sounded tired and worried, and Jed almost caved. “Can I just talk to him, though?”

There was another long silence, and Jed figured Nathan and this man Ezra were conferring in looks and stares. A warm hand shook Jed’s sound shoulder carefully.

“Thaddeus?” Nathan called quietly.

Jed pretended to wake and opened his eyes, looking straight at Nathan to avoid looking at Heyes. “Nathan?” he asked, sounding foggier than he already felt. “What’s going on?”

“I got someone I want you to see,” Nathan told him gently, moving out of the way so Jed could see the door.

He looked at Ezra and Heyes, standing side-by-side, and tried to eye them with equal lack of recognition. Heyes’ eyes got big and tragic and Jed almost gave himself away. Instead he examined Ezra. JD had told him that his friend Ezra was a gambler, and he looked it, all fancy clothes and a crafty look in his eyes.

“JD’s friend, right?” Jed asked. “The gambler?” He looked at Heyes and tried not to laugh at the puppy dog look. He was buying this whole hog and deserved every moment of distress it caused him. “Does that make you Vin?”

Hannibal’s face was priceless. He swallowed hard and walked forward, hat still in his hands. “It’s me, Thaddeus,” he said earnestly. “Joshua?”

Jed really tried, but he just couldn’t keep it up any more. No matter how irritating Heyes could be, he was the only family Jed had. And he was just as worried now as Jed had been for the last month, so…

“Smith?” he asked, trying to look as if the clouds were parting and a veil was lifting.

“Yeah,” Heyes replied, a smile breaking out. “Yeah, Joshua Smith!” he agreed, he looked at the other two men in the room, smiling on the both of them, and Jed let him have his moment.

“I was looking for you,” he accused, like he’d only just remembered that Heyes had gone missing on him for all that time. “You took off.”

Heyes looked angry at himself now, and Jed had all the evidence he needed that things with Tucker had gone badly. Like he’d _told him_ they would.

“Yeah, I uh… ran into some trouble.” He got defensive, like he always did when he was angry at himself. “But it looks like you did, too!”

“Mine wasn’t my fault,” Jed countered.

Nathan’s chuckle cut through the argument, and Jed remembered that he wasn’t supposed to be able to remember at all. “Looks like all you needed was a push, eh, Thaddeus?” he asked. Ezra was grinning, too.

Jed looked up at Heyes and smiled. “Yeah, I guess so,” he replied. “A push and a familiar face.”

He was still worried about Farragut showing back up, and he still hurt a whole heck of a lot, but at least now he had Heyes by his side.

That just naturally made things better.

********

“You know, it’s a good thing you remembered the name Thaddeus before you remembered your own,” Heyes mused a week and a half later, as the two of them rode north. Farragut had been “convinced” to drop his search for Kid Curry, and Hannibal had spent the week playing poker. Sometimes with Ezra, who was a challenge, and sometimes with others, so he could build up a stake to get them a ways, until the Kid felt good enough to do… anything really.

He was already looking better, though. Sure his face was half yellow and purple and his arm was in a sling and he was limping some, but he was him. He remembered everything now, it seemed.

“So what was it like?” Hannibal asked, thinking maybe they should start looking for a place to stop for the night. The Kid was looking a little peaked. He wasn’t up to full day rides quite yet and Hannibal felt like they’d never get home. “Not knowing who you were?” He shuddered at the idea.

“I don’t remember,” Jed replied, smiling meanly at him.

“Kid,” Hannibal growled.

“I don’t know,” the Kid relented immediately. “I remember waking up and seeing people I didn’t know and wondering where I was, and eventually I woke up knowing all that and _who_ I was, too.”

“So, you remembered everything all at once?” Hannibal asked, smelling a rat. “But when you saw me first, you said…” He growled at Jed’s tight grin. “You worked me all up for nothing!”

“I told you going off with Gus Tucker was a bad idea, Heyes,” Jed said, clearly still sore about it. “You didn’t listen, and look at the mess you caused.”

“Hey, I didn’t ask you to come looking for me,” Hannibal retorted defensively.

“Heyes, you know better than that,” the Kid replied solidly. “I’ll always come looking for you.”

The truth of it kept them both silent for a long minute, riding along toward home.

“It’s a good thing you had those regulators to look out for you,” Hannibal said finally. “You think any of them knew you were really you?”

“Nah.” Jed shrugged. “They just figured Farragut was being crazy and targeting the wrong man.”

“You’re probably right,” Hannibal agreed. “I don’t think that Larabee would’ve let us go if he’d known.”

“Let’s get a few more miles out before the end of the day,” Jed said, pushing his horse a little faster. “I just want to get home.”

Home, Hannibal thought with a smile, watching the Kid riding ahead of him, hale and healing. Sounded good to him.

*******

“Wasn’t it weird that Thaddeus’s friend looked so much like Hannibal Heyes?” JD asked as he sat down at their regular table. Vin, Chris, and Josiah were already there, losing to Ezra at poker, as usual. “I wonder if they get mistaken for them a lot?”

“I expect it’s an occupational hazard,” Ezra remarked, sharing a smirk with Vin that meant JD had missed something.

“I never did get what their job was,” JD said. Neither of the men really talked about it. They seemed to do a little bit of everything.

“I believe you could say they’ve retired,” Josiah claimed, tossing his poker hand into the pot.

JD was confused. He hated that. “What do you mean? They don’t look like they’re even as old as Chris. Or Buck.”

“Hell, kid, I’m a spring chicken,” Buck said from right behind him. “Don’t go misinterpreting experience for age, now. Just because you’re barely out of short pants.”

“Shut up, Buck,” JD bit back reflexively.

“I figured Lom might like to know the boys are all right and headed home,” Buck told Chris quietly, sitting down at one of the empty seats.

“Who’s Lom?” JD was just getting angry now. They all knew something he didn’t, and it made him feel like a kid again.

“Lom Trevors,” Buck said. “We knew him in the war but he made some… interesting choices after that.” He shared a grin with Chris. “He’s reformed now—a sheriff if you can believe it. I sent him a telegram after Thaddeus woke up. Seems he’d lost track of a couple of former bank robbers. Was glad to hear tell of at least one of them.”

“Former bank robbers…?” JD blinked. “You mean they really _were_ Curry and Heyes?” he asked, annoyed when every man at the table smirked. “You all could’ve told me!”

“Did it matter?” Nathan asked, coming to sit between Vin and Josiah. Josiah poured him a shot of whiskey and Nathan nodded his thanks. “The way I hear it, Heyes and Curry haven’t pulled a job in years.” He threw a glance at Ezra. “People change.”

“But…” JD shook his head. “They’re wanted for twenty bank and train jobs! The bounties are $10,000 apiece!”

“They never hurt a soul in all that thieving,” Vin said quietly. “And a bounty don’t mean you deserve the punishment.”

“But they _did_ it,” JD continued. Didn’t any of them understand? “I mean, sure, Vin, _you’re_ an innocent man, but Heyes and Curry? They actually stole all that money.”

“Did you ever wonder why they’re riding through the desert penniless, then?” Ezra asked.

Well… no. JD hadn’t wondered that, actually.

“According to an acquaintance of mine in Laramie,” he said, looking at his cards and not the rest of them. “After every robbery, it seems surprising things happened around the Wyoming territory. Families that had been doomed to lose their farms suddenly paid their mortgages in full. Children who’d lost their parents were suddenly taken care of. That sort of thing.”

“‘Such outlaws as he and his men will England never see again,’” Josiah quoted.

“A disgrace of a thief, but an apt analogy,” Ezra said, dealing another hand.

JD was glad he wasn’t the only one to look at them both blankly. “Robin Hood,” Josiah explained.

“Still…” JD started, though he suddenly had less heart for it.

“Let it go, JD,” Chris said quietly. “They’re on their way. Nothing to do about it now.”

JD shook his head and drank his milk. He never was going to understand these men.

********  
the end

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Josiah quotes from the supposed gravestone of Robin Hood. Text from an 1806 book “A collection of epitaphs and inscriptions.”


End file.
